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So-Bad-It’s-Good and Video Games, Part Two

In part one we discussed why really bad media can sometimes be enjoyable and why watching Let’s Plays of bad games ticks many of the same boxes as watching a good-bad film, without the frustrations that would come with actually playing a bad game. Now we’ll consider whether playing is even necessary at all to get the heart of the good-bad experience.

So for cheap, short, throwaway games it might be worth experiencing the badness for yourself, we concluded. For longer, more expensive examples, perhaps not. But there are actually theories that seeing or playing a good-bad game/film are not even necessary for participation in the phenomenon of it:

“The social aspect […] is really key. I think, if we’re being honest, they’re not so much movies to be watched as they are movies to be known about, to be shared, and to share in the complete disbelief of. Watching is not the primary experience […]; celebrating is.” – Mike Rugnetta, PBS Idea channel.

In gaming the Zelda games on the Phillips CDi are the perfect example of this: they are hugely ‘popular’ yet being rare, expensive games on a rare, expensive and temperamental console almost no-one has played them; most people’s exposure to them was first through YouTube poop and then through reviewers like the Angry Video Game Nerd and PeanutButterGamer. Furthermore every youtuber who does play them usually comments that the controls and design choices mean that they are no fun at all to play.

Emulation may fix some of the control issues, but this itself presents two problems: Firstly, you are not experiencing the ‘true badness’ that made the games legendary in the first place; and secondly the design issues (lamp oil and rope requiring rupee farming, darkness, enemies too short to stab) are still bad enough to make everything between the hilarious cut-scenes you’re probably playing it for a painful experience.

Hence, it could be argued it is the viewer – either of a review, a Let’s Play or the cut-scenes in isolation – who is getting the best experience.

The idea of good-bads to be ‘celebrated’ rather than watched/played brings us on to ‘manufactured’ examples, things designed to hit those notes of silliness on purpose. In movies, this is Sharknado, Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus and the like. By some reports, Sharknado did better on twitter than it did on television. People were so enthralled with the idea they skipped watching and went straight to celebrating.

However, the movie itself is by The Asylum, who also produced the aforementioned Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus and Snakes on a Train. They are competent cheesemongers who know what they’re doing, and their productions lack the necessary grand pathos of a Birdemic or a Sonic ’06.

In video games we have Goat Simulator. Every physics glitch short of game-breaking has been diligently not fixed, and some (the way the goat climbs ladders) it’s hard to believe were not put in on purpose. What’s more it has reasonable controls, is quite cheap, and everything is pretty much instantly accessible. Thus it sidesteps most of the issues that put people off true good-bad games.

On his first impressions video, John ‘Totalbiscuit’ Baincommentedthat the game—amusingly buggy by intent and highly focused on emergent interactions—seemed more designed for Let’s Players than a general audience. Indeed, the Game Grumps and PewDiePie have both played Goat Simulator multiple times, nearly always garnering many more views than their average. Though still apt, this criticism seems addressed somewhat by the update adding a much larger second map and multiplayer functionality, though these things of course benefit the Let’s Players as well as the general ones.

As of August 2014 Goat Simulator has “almost 1 million” sales. This is a hell of a lot. It has been proven that Let’s Plays increase sales so it was a shrewd move by the developer to make a game so perfect for them, as this will have shifted a lot of copies. Still, PewDiePie’s first Goat Simulator video has over 9 million views (he averages around 3-5 million), some subsequent ones have over 6, 7 and 8 million views respectively. It seems Bain was right on at least some level, many more people would rather watch the game than play it.

Perhaps, if we go by the above Ideas Channel quote, this is all that’s necessary. A Let’s Play or even a 20 minute ‘review’ are enough to show us the game’s most egregious aspects.

Whether good-bad games (for playing) will ever take off is a question that’s hard to give a sweeping answer to. There are too many variables; the situation will be different for each game. Yahtzee (him from the beginning of part one)said ofRide to Hell: Retribution “It’s bad. It’s explosively apocalyptically bad and you should totally buy it. I’m serious; you have to see this shit […] this could be our Plan 9 from Outer Space.” though he does admit at one point that ‘adorably bad’ sometimes starts to stray into testing the patience. Ride to Hell (metascore 13-19) is £8 on Steam, less if it’s on sale.

I sure as hell don’t know if it’s worth the time, money and frustration. But maybe it doesn’t need to be when it gives sixty-six thousand results on YouTube, and every video on the first page has over a hundred thousand views…